The balding, bespectacled nebbish who gained cult status as the oddball Larry “Bud” Melman on David Letterman’s late-night television shows has died after a long illness.
The Brooklyn-born Calvert DeForest, who was 85, died Monday at a hospital on Long Island, the Letterman show announced Wednesday. He made dozens of appearances on Letterman’s shows from 1982 through 2002, handling a variety of twisted duties: dueting with Sonny Bono on “I Got You, Babe,” doing a Mary Tyler Moore impression during a visit to Minneapolis, handing out hot towels to arrivals at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
“Everyone always wondered if Calvert was an actor playing a character, but in reality he was just himself — a genuine, modest and nice man,” Letterman said in a statement. “To our staff and to our viewers, he was a beloved and valued part of our show, and we will miss him.”
The gnomish DeForest was working as a file clerk at a drug-rehabilitation center when show producers, who had seen him in a New York University student’s film, came calling.
DeForest was the first face to greet viewers when Letterman’s NBC show debuted on Feb. 1, 1982, offering a parody of the prologue to the Boris Karloff film “Frankenstein.”
“It was the greatest thing that had happened in my life,” he once said of his first Letterman appearance.
DeForest, given the nom de tube of Melman, became a program regular. The collaboration continued when the talk show host launched “Late Show With David Letterman” on CBS in 1994.
Cue cards were often DeForest’s television kryptonite, and his character inevitably appeared in an ill-fitting black suit behind thick black-rimmed glasses.
The Melman character opened Letterman’s first CBS show too— but used his real name because of a dispute with NBC over “intellectual property.” DeForest, positioned inside the network’s familiar eye logo, announced, “This is CBS!”
His last appearance on “Late Show” came in 2002, celebrating his 81st birthday.
DeForest also appeared in an assortment of other television shows and films, including “Nothing Lasts Forever” with Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd.
As per his request, there will be no funeral service for DeForest, who left no survivors. Donations can be made in his name to the Actors’ Fund of America.